


At the End of the Rope

by turnitup



Series: Hush [2]
Category: SEAL Team (TV)
Genre: Caretaking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Injury Recovery, Light Dom/sub, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27879102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnitup/pseuds/turnitup
Summary: How do you get up and move on when your world crashes and burns?
Relationships: Brock Reynolds & Clay Spenser, Brock Reynolds/Clay Spenser
Series: Hush [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041270
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	1. The First Step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CowandCalf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CowandCalf/gifts).



> Dedicated to CowandCalf for all of the wonderful support, praise and love. 
> 
> \- TRIGGER WARNING -  
> The following reading contains references to rape and sexual assault experienced by one of the main characters.  
> If this could be potentially traumatizing or triggering for you, please look after yourself first.
> 
> Not Beta read! Any mistakes are my own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- TRIGGER WARNING --  
> The following contains content relating to a consensual and explicit sexual relationship between three adult men.
> 
> If this is something that could be potentially triggering or offensive to you, please do not continue reading.

It takes a while for Brock to definitely find out that Clay's not okay.

Not because it's some kind of secret. Just because he isn't fucking paying attention. There's bullshit about Clay floating around base on a semi-regular basis, just from having the misfortune of being Ash’s son; Brock ignores the rumours deliberately, eyes and ears skipping over them with a weird petty satisfaction. But every now and then, he catches a word or two before he realizes what he's hearing and turns away. Every now and then, one of those rumours, one of those photos, can't help but jam its contents into his eyeballs before he has a chance to prevent it.

And one day, it's—it's Clay and some guy, and Brock jerks his eyes away automatically and then they jerk themselves back almost as fast, because what?

It's got to be made up. That's what he thinks at first. That's what bored sailors do: make shit up, the more salacious the better. And a DEVGRU operator with a rocky past like Clay, makes an extra attractive target.

But he looks at the photo a little longer, and—well.

Unless somebody straight-up Photoshopped the whole thing, Clay is definitely holding some guy's hand.

Brock swallows.

He'd thought Clay had just had an average level of it’s 2020, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” going on, during that … conversation they'd had in that clinic in the ass end of a desert. When he'd looked Brock in the face, blooding and puss and come dripping off of him, all sharp ragged edges and uncertain eyes, saying, _I don't even know who I am anymore—_

Apparently he'd meant a little more by that than Brock had realized at the time.

It's not a big deal. If anything, he ought to be proud of the kid for getting himself sorted the fuck out—for having the stones to hold that guy's hand, and fuck whoever had been telling him not to. After what happened.. he _is_ proud of the kid, not that he's going to say so to anybody out loud.

But there's something about the thought of Clay and Some Guy that curdles itself up in Brock's gut, sour.

He tries not to dwell on it. He tries not to think about it at all.

But he starts to have a lot more trouble not listening to the scuttlebutt, not checking for more rumours of Clay.

And then he starts not liking that Clay's dating Some Guy for a totally different reason. It takes even longer to get to the point where it bothers him in a way he can't ignore.

Brock's a world champion at ignoring shit. Outside of the mission or a spin, Clay's not his responsibility anymore. Clay's not supposed to be his responsibility anymore, and Brock's been doing his level best to slowly smother the part of him that can't stop shrieking otherwise. Besides, if it were really that bad, if this isn't all just him being paranoid—the kid would say something to someone. Wouldn't he?

But Brock's also spent almost half his life looking at people, watching them, trying to figure out what their deal is before they can catch him by surprise and shoot him in the face. He pays attention to the small stuff. Especially when he's got a reason to give a shit.

At first, it's just an idle thought. Changing after an op Brock notices that Clay looks tired. A little pinched around the face, the eyes.

Weird, Brock can't help thinking. Normally after a successful op you can’t get Clay and Sonny to shut up. But—maybe it was the attention he'd gotten a charge out of. It's Clay, after all. Probably just training harder or something, getting ready for deployment. That must be all it is.

Except it happens again, and again, and again.

Clay's still grinning on base, most of the time. But more and more often, as a month turns into two, three, he's—he looks tense, skittish, mouth tight. Brock had been happy for a while there, during the quiet hours in the dark when he'd allowed himself to think about _it_ , because Clay was okay. He wasn’t getting smashed or fucked up all the time, not having to be peeled off the floor covered in stripper glitter. But it starts up again, now: empty cans in his car, stories of closing down the bar. Clay's eyes half-open, and Some fucking Guy with his arm around Clay's shoulders.

Clay starts looking more and more like that asshole kid who'd bottom five’d, who punched a superior in the head, and ran his mouth throughout the entire SERE process, and less and less like the guy who would step between Brock and a bullet. And the worst part is—if Brock's right, if Clay _feels_ more like that asshole kid again, he can't be happy about it. He wasn't happy before, like that.

Four months into Clay dating Some Guy, Brock catches himself staring, thinking to himself that Clay looks thin.

_Thin_.

Jesus, Brock is turning into his own _mother_.

It's probably the stress. He’s a Tier One operator. It's probably for deployment, losing fat, leaning out, tightening up. It's none of Brock's fucking business. It's—

It's the Navy and Some Guy's fucking business, now, and that knowledge really shouldn't burn Brock up inside the way it does.

Fuck, he is so fucked.

* * *

Brock isn’t with the team for a time. Bravo’s off rotation and he was sent as an instructor for a specialized training course with Cerb up in the mountains. They're still talking those four months, the Bravo group text going strong, but Brock doesn't know whether to treat it as evidence, add it to the casefile his brain's apparently started keeping on Clay, that Clay barely talks to him – or anyone - about Some Guy at all.

Clay sounds fine, mostly. Brock tries to use that to keep himself at bay, and it sort of works, for a while.

It's just—

It's just there's some shit Brock can't quite convince himself to let go of.

Brock brings up Some Guy once, when he can't stand not to anymore. That's back in the early days, maybe a month in. And Clay breathes into the phone for a second, and laughs a little, and says, "Um, yeah. Surprise? I probably should've warned you—somebody might come around asking questions—"

"'Now that Clay Spenser is gay'," Brock intones, in his best Idiot Commander voice, "'we need an itemized list of every time he ever touched a man, in case that touch was also gay'."

Clay snorts, uncontrolled, honest, amused. "Yeah," he agrees. "Something like that."

"Nothing yet," Brock tells him. "But if anybody tries it, I'll be the one who ends up court-martialed.”

He's expecting a joke. He's expecting Clay to grab onto that and drive it into the ground, in point of fact; he grimaces a little even before Clay's said anything, because that's the kind of opening Brock would usually try not to give him.

But instead, Clay's quiet, for a too-long moment that suddenly has every inch of Brock's nerves on alert, the skin prickling at the nape of Brock's neck.

"Hah," Clay says at last— _says_ it, not even a real laugh. "Yeah. Well." He clears his throat. "Um, I should—I better—"

"Sure, yeah," Brock hears himself say, and is left staring down at his silent phone after Clay's hung up.

He wants to think it's a one-off. An outlier.

But instead, it turns out to be the new normal. Clay doesn't talk about much outside of the team. Doesn’t talk to his brothers anymore.

He starts to sound hurried, hushed. He starts to sound like he's trying not to be overheard. Sometimes he calls Clay and Clay doesn't even answer.

Brock doesn't know how to ask about it. He doesn't know whether he should try.

It gets to the point, at around that four-month mark, where they're in the middle of a conversation about—about hardly fucking anything, about _sports_ or something, and Brock feels like a fucking parody of himself: Clay's practically whispering, taut and anxious, and Brock's going on and on like he hasn't noticed a thing, like it's totally normal, because he doesn't know what the fuck else to do. It's like whatever's wrong with Clay is wrong with him, too, like there's something he needs to be scared of; like if he breathes wrong, breaks a rule, says a word about it, for all he fucking knows Clay's never going to pick up the phone again.

And then, suddenly, right in the middle of a sentence, Clay interrupts him. Totally normal volume, easy conversational tone: "Yeah, I don't know, man, I might not be able to make it. But thanks for the invite!"

Brock stops short, heart clenched up cold and tight in his chest. "Clay," he says.

"No, dude, no worries," Clay adds, bright. "It's cool, it's cool."

"Clay, if you're in trouble—" Brock stops, squeezes his eyes shut, because Jesus, what the fuck is he going to do about it? Go AWOL? Fly three thousand miles and show up eight hours too late to save Clay's ass? "I got your back, kid," he says at last, hoarse, frustrated, feeling fucking useless. "You know that, right?"

Clay's quiet, for a handful of seconds that feels like a fucking year. Brock hears a quick, gulped breath, and then Clay says, "Yeah?" and he's still forcing that shiny bright tone, but suddenly it doesn't matter: Brock can tell it's real, a question, and it's like a bullet to the guts that it's one Clay feels like he has to ask.

" _Yeah_ ," Brock says, low. "Yeah. Okay? Anything. Anything you need."

It isn't enough. It doesn't feel like enough. Jesus, Brock isn't—Brock isn't anybody's idea of comforting; Clay must have a dozen other people he'd be better off calling for help with whatever it is he's dealing with. Brock should just keep his fucking mouth shut.

But Clay doesn't tell him that. Clay just breathes into the phone again, and then clears his throat and says, "Well, thanks, man. I'll keep it in mind, for sure." And then, hasty, too-loud, "See you around!" and Brock knows even before he's moved his phone away from his ear and looked down at it that Clay's already hung up.

He's expecting it to be a week or so before he hears from Clay again. That's about what they're down to, these days. He expects to be stuck waiting, trying to get a grip, hoping he didn't fuck that up so bad Clay never talks to him again.

He isn't expecting his phone to ring the next afternoon, right in the middle of his second Saturday-and-nothing-to-do-but-the-crossword beer. And he definitely isn't expecting it to be Clay.

"Hey, man."

"Hey," Brock offers, cautious. Clay's not talking quietly this time; and Brock hadn't quite put it together before, but there's something different in the quality of the sound around him, too. Brock had gotten used to everything being muffled, hushed, like Clay had shut himself up in a bathroom to talk—but now he can hear the rush of traffic beyond Clay's voice, the chatter of people. Clay's in public. Public is safe. Brock's shoulders drop an inch or two.

"So, uh, here's the thing," Clay says. "You meant it, yesterday. Right?"

"Yeah," Brock says, instant, helpless. "Yeah, kid. Of course I did."

"Great," Clay says. "Fantastic. Then, um, maybe you could let me in?"

Brock sits there, frozen, for a mindless second. And then all at once he's up, out of his chair, pulse pounding in his throat, practically pressing his face to his window—and jesuz, fuck, it's true. That's Clay, right down there, standing on the sidewalk with his hoodie pulled up.

"I'll think about it," Brock makes himself say, blandly, evenly, and watches the Clay down there in the street tip his head back, listens to the shaky laugh as it filters through the phone, and then he gets a fucking grip and goes down to meet Clay at the door.

* * *

Clay's breathless, too-bright, a little manic, on the way up the stairs to Brock's rental. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet waiting for Brock to get the door open, and talking a mile a minute, so fast Brock can hardly keep up.

Jesus, it's ridiculously fucking good to see him. To have him right here, in person, in arm's reach. Brock hadn't—hadn't let himself think about it, had been trying not to get fucked up over it; but it had stretched him pretty fucking thin anyway, feeling like Clay was in danger, knowing he was too far away to do anything. Three thousand miles, three feet: any distance is too much, when Clay's standing there taking a bullet to the chest and Brock can't do a goddamn thing about it.

But he's here now, and something deep down in Brock has finally settled, eased out where it had been cramped up taut.

And then Brock actually starts hearing what Clay's saying.

"—sorry, man, I know it's bullshit to just show up like this. I didn't even tell you I was coming. Didn’t tell Jason I was leaving. Sure as fuck didn’t tell Blackburn. I should have called first or something, not just when I was already right outside. I'm—if you're busy with whatever, or—"

"Shut up," Brock says quietly.

He's got the door open, and Clay's already stepped inside, on autopilot; Brock follows him, swings the door shut, and then turns around and grabs him by the shoulders, tugs him in for the least back-breaking man-hug Brock's got in his arsenal.

Which, of course, is probably the stupidest thing he could possibly have done. He freezes right there, arm around Clay. Because, jesus, he wants to be wrong about why Clay's here; he wants the whole thing to have been in his head, just Brock Sawyer jumping the gun, assuming the worst. Too much time working in warzones and seeing the shit people will do to each other, getting himself turned around, reading too much into nothing. But if Clay really is—if Some Guy really has been— _hurting_ him, again, then the last thing he needs is Brock muscling him around—

Clay stands there for a tense second, unmoving, and Brock is making serious plans to throw himself out the fucking window.

And then Clay lets out a weird, harsh little breath against the ball of Brock's shoulder, and relaxes tentatively into it. Brings an arm up, and hugs back.

He does it too hard, too long. Like thirty seconds longer than man-hugs are allowed to last, in Brock's experience. But the kid never did meet a rule he wasn't looking to break at the first opportunity; and Brock sure as shit isn't going to be the one to let go first.

Fuck, Brock thinks helplessly. Clay _is_ thin.

"Hey," he makes himself say, and he didn't mean it as a cue but Clay seems to take it as one, clearing his throat and jerking free, turning away.

Brock closes his eyes, and clears his throat, too, and strives to keep his tone—level, at least, even if he can't match Clay for sheer forced conversational ease. He's not a fucking actor here. "Come on, sit your ass down," he says. "Beer?"

And shit, that's probably the wrong thing to do, too—like he's encouraging Clay to drink to cope, like he doesn't have a pretty good guess that Clay already tried getting hammered to deal with Some Guy a few times too many. Jesus. Brock's never felt more like a bull in a china shop; usually it's _useful_ , the way he never stops to second-guess himself until after he's already moved, the way he trusts his body's own reflexive response. It's great, real handy, when the problem he's facing is a hail of bullets. Little less so when he's got to actually try to use his fucking brain.

But Clay glances over his shoulder at Brock and says, "Sure," and he sounds so fucking relieved to be asked, so fucking relieved that Brock's treating this like any old Saturday afternoon, that Brock can't bring himself to take it back.

One beer, Brock tells himself. It's fine. It's not a big thing, so don't make it into one. Get a goddamn grip.

So they sit there on Brock's rented apartments shitty couch and drink their beers.

Brock manages to ease himself off the knife-edge after a minute; because Clay's just taking absent sips, like he wants something to do with his hands, his face, more than he's after beer in particular. Brock just—just worked himself up, hypervigilant, and now that he's aware of it, paying attention to how fucking wired he is, he knows what to do about it.

He breathes, and he sips his own beer, and he talks himself silently down.

Clay seems content to sit quietly for a little while. He shifts, once, and his knee ends up pressed to Brock's; he doesn't move it away again.

He hasn't said a word about a hotel. Brock thinks about asking, except he doesn't want to bring it up if Clay isn't going to—doesn't want to make Clay think Brock's angling to get him to stay someplace else. Truth is, he'd rather Clay stayed right here: right here, safe, where Brock can keep an eye on him properly, with Some Guy finally the one who's stuck a couple thousand miles away. Tables turned, asshole.

And—Clay probably wants to stay right here too, actually, Brock realizes slowly. The hoodie, the hat Clay's now flipped to rest backwards on his head, aren't just Clay's awful sense of style. He was trying not to get noticed, down there on the street outside Brock's building. 

It makes Brock's gut go cold, that it might have gotten that fucking serious, that Clay might be trying that hard to make sure his own fucking boyfriend can't figure out where he is. Jesus.

Brock hadn't realized until right then, facing down the sudden icy awareness of exactly how much he doesn't know about what's going on with Clay, exactly how bad it might be, that he'd been hoping for anything in particular. That he'd desperately wanted to believe Some Guy had gotten physical with Clay for the very first time just yesterday; that Clay had called the play and come straight to Brock. Because if that's not true, then Clay's been surviving this shit for weeks, _months_ , without saying a goddamn word—without understanding that he could have, that Brock would've done anything to help him.

And no sooner has the thought formed, bile rising up unstoppably at the back of Brock's throat, than Clay reaches out to set his beer down on the coffee table—and the tug of his sleeve riding up bares his wrist.

"Oh, fuck," Brock says.

Clay glances at him, looking nothing but puzzled. And then, in an excruciatingly visible flicker, his face goes carefully blank.

He plays it cool, because of course he does. He must know trying to cover up the smattering of blue-green bruising would only make it more obvious that something fucked up happened to put it there. You smack your wrist on the edge of a drawer, you don't bother hiding it; you don't panic and yank your sleeve down over it and start talking loudly about how it's nothing.

"Hm?" he says, like he might not have figured out what Brock's reacting to. "Oh, yeah, that's—" He stops.

And then, slowly, his face changes. He screws his eyes shut, and rubs his mouth.

"Jesus," he says quietly. "What the hell am I doing? You know it wasn't a fucking training accident." He stops, and bites his lip, and looks at Brock, and his eyes are somewhere between wary and pleading. "You've got to know. You guessed. I know you guessed, you—"

He's speeding up, panicky, like he thinks Brock's about to say, _What the fuck are you talking about?_ Like he's been lying for so long he's half-afraid that it's true, that nothing's wrong with whatever that asshole has been doing to him, that it's not bad enough for anybody to give a shit.

"Yeah," Brock says instead, before Clay can get any further. "Yeah, I guessed. I know. You're right. I know."

Clay's staring at him, pale, silent. For a second, his eyes look wet, and Brock tries not to fucking bolt at the idea that he's about to cry; Brock's _a god-damned Navy Seal_ , for fuck's sake, how can he feel so thoroughly goddamn unprepared for this?

But then Clay blinks, once, twice, and swallows, and blurts with a laugh, "I don't want to talk about it."

He sounds like he's shocked to hear himself do it, like he didn't mean to. He shakes his head after, lets his eyes fall shut, and the slant of his mouth is disbelieving, a little wild, but at least it's there. At least Some Guy hasn't fucked him up so bad he can't even laugh.

"I mean it, okay? You don't have to tell me shit. But—you've got to let me look at it."

"At my wrist? Are you serious? Come on, man, it's not like he broke it—"

Brock tilts his head a little, meets Clay's eyes, and Clay's mouth snaps shut.

"You really going to try and tell me that's all of it?" Brock says softly.

And Clay looks at him and then away, and doesn't answer.

Which basically is an answer, Brock figures.

"Come on," Brock tells him. "Bathroom."

Clay seems to have maybe been riding some adrenaline coming to Brock's place—or else, now that the ice is broken, now that they've actually kind of halfway said something about the elephant in the room, he's just not putting as much effort into the "everything's totally fine" routine.

Either way, he moves ahead of Brock to the bathroom, and Brock notices for the first time that he's holding himself strangely. Stiffly, kind of. Not a lot, just a little; but now that bruises have entered the picture, Brock's not exactly assuming the best.

Jesus. Just how badly is he hurt? Just how badly has he _been_ hurt, this entire fucking time? And not even while he's been right the fuck in front of Brock, while they were sitting there together drinking their fucking beers, in the cages, at Ray’s backyard barbeque; half a dozen fucking times; in every single one of those situations while Brock was busy trying not to look at them and telling himself Clay was fine—

"Dude," Clay says. "I don't take my shirt off for people with that look on their face."

Brock blinks, and looks up. He's—scowling, he realizes belatedly, brow heavy, jaw working. He tries to stop.

Judging by the way Clay's eyebrow rises, he doesn't entirely succeed.

"Look," Clay says, after an awkward beat. "I get it. It's weird that I'm—that I'm suddenly dumping this shit on you, after— what happened—"

"What?" Brock says. "Are you fucking—I'm not mad at _you_ , Sunshine. Jesus."

He realizes a second too late that that makes it a little too easy to figure out who he is mad at, and by then Clay's already gone still, looking at him with startled, speculative eyes.

"You're mad at him?" Clay pauses. "No, you were—you were mad at him already," he amends slowly, like he's trying to get his head around the idea, like somehow it's even a fucking question. "You were mad at him already, but you weren't making that face. You're mad at—you? Man, what for?" He laughs a little, bites his lip after, like he knows it isn't really funny. " _You_ didn't do this to me," he adds in a rush, and Brock recognizes the expression on his face, half daring and half sick, at acknowledging even part of it out loud for the second time in like five minutes.

"As good as," Brock bites out.

Because he might suck at this part, this whole—being careful, being considerate. Being gentle; being kind. That's not anything Brock ever trained for, not anything he was ever built for, and he's fucked it up at least three different ways already.

But there's another part he shouldn't have sucked at. Brock's a brick shithouse, a cold-blooded killer, the wrath of God. _That's_ what he's good at. Which means the least he could have fucking done was _stop_ this. He shouldn't have been sitting here, dicking around with his thumb up his ass, making Clay come to him—making the guy who was in the deepest trouble, the most danger, get _himself_ out of it. He should have gotten his shit together when he thought there was something wrong with Clay, and he should have gone and shot Some Guy in the head.

That was the part that was his job, if anything was. And he hadn't lifted a goddamn finger to get it done.

Clay's staring at him.

"What," Clay says, "because you didn't do anything? Are you serious? Dude, I was—I was _hiding_ it from you. Hiding it from everyone. I didn't _want_ you to notice, I wasn't telling anyone shit. And you think you not figuring it out faster and coming to save my ass is _your_ fault?"

Brock swallows. "You might be a trained operator," he says, low, "but you're not that good a liar." He shakes his head. "I knew something was wrong. I _knew_. And I—"

He stops, and shuts his mouth. What the hell can he even say? What kind of excuse, what kind of apology, can he possibly give?

He'd hesitated. He'd told himself that he wasn't sure, that he didn't know anything for certain. He hadn't done shit, and he'd left Clay to make it through alone, and he's going to have to figure out how to fucking live with that.

And the last thing he should be doing right now is making any of that Clay's problem.

"Brock," Clay's saying, unsteady, bright-eyed.

"Never mind," Brock mutters, and doesn't look him in the face. "Shirt off. Come on."

Clay looks like shit.

He's bruised in a dozen different places, everything from the barest greenish shadows about to fade away along his collarbone to a huge scary-ass blue-black span over his ribs that makes Brock grimace in sympathy. He's got a scattering of half-healed cuts across the top of his shoulder, the side of his throat, the hinge of his jaw—the pattern doesn't make any sense to Brock, and then does, once he realizes it would match up to the spray of glass from something shattering right over Clay's shoulder. Some Guy must have thrown whatever it was at Clay's fucking _head_. Jesus.

Brock curls his hands into fists, presses his knuckles into his thighs, so he won't reach out and touch any of it. It's hurting people, not— _soothing_ them—that comes natural to him, and that's the last goddamn thing Clay needs right now.

No wonder Clay was holding himself weird.

"You really ought to get an actual medical professional to look at those, or at least Trent," Brock says, jerking his chin toward the ribs. They've got to be bruised right to the bone, and that's if they aren't cracked, or even broken.

"Oh, give me a fucking break," Clay says. "You think I could get an actual doctor to take a look and not have it get back to the Brass? Get back to Jason?” He shakes his head, sharp. "I don't—I don't want to—" He stops, and reaches out; it's almost supposed to be a punch, Brock thinks, the friendly kind, except Clay slows it, softens it, until it's nothing but the backs of his knuckles coming up to rest against Brock's chest. "It's you," Clay says at last, after a second. "You've dealt with this shit before. You know what you're doing. You fucking.. have seen me at my worst. You'd know if it was that bad." He pauses, and tilts his head, raises an eyebrow. "Besides, I don't remember seeing a whole lot of medical professionals giving you a second opinion about doing runs through the killhouse with that bullet wound."

Brock sighs through his nose. Not like he can argue the point.

He gets it, all right. He gets it. Wanting to just curl up on your own goddamn turf and have everybody else fuck the fuck off and leave you alone—yeah, Brock's familiar with that one. And if there's a part of him that's a little too mindlessly pleased to think his apartment qualifies as safe ground for Clay to retreat to, well. He'll just keep that to himself.

"I don't think they're broken," Clay adds.

"The hell would you know about it," Brock says, and fuck, he walked right the fuck into that: Clay raises both eyebrows at him, not just the one, and turns a little, moves his elbow back out of the way, a silent _well, go on, then_.

So Brock swallows, and bites down on the inside of his cheek, and lets himself reach out.

It feels weird. His hands are for hefting shotguns, racking slides, the kind of uppercut that cracks teeth. He's braced for Clay to flinch from them—to realize he's got himself shut up shirtless in a bathroom with a guy who's made a living fucking people up even worse than Clay's fucked up right now, and make a break for it.

But Clay doesn't flinch. Brock fans out his fingers, curves a palm tentatively along the line of Clay's ribs right at the edge of the bruising, and Clay breathes out slow and doesn't move away at all.

"This might hurt a little," Brock warns him.

"Yeah, I figured," Clay says, real dry, and then pauses and swallows, gaze dropping and then finding its way back up after a second. "But I know you aren't doing it to make a point, man. I, um. I trust you, you know?" He reaches up, and curls his hand around Brock's wrist. "It's cool."

He sounds almost surprised to hear the words out of his own mouth—wets his lips, and says it again, and this time it comes out certain, satisfied.

"I trust you."

So Brock checks his goddamn ribs.

They're definitely bruised. At least one is probably cracked, but they're not broken, not in any danger of stabbing him in the lung or anything. He'll live. Brock's thorough, careful, takes his time: follows the bend of them all the way around to Clay's spine, just in case, one by one.

And then he finds his hand drifting to the next patch of bruising, down at Clay's hip. Not hand-shaped or anything; probably Clay got pushed, hit something else, a chair or the edge of a table. Brock runs the pads of his fingertips over it, feeling the heat of it, the swelling, the thin soft skin, and Clay sucks in a breath and still doesn't move away.

So Brock touches the rest of them, too. The bruises, the cuts. Something a little older, not quite a scar yet, that he doesn't like the look of. It's punishment, a little bit: everything that shouldn't have happened, everything he shouldn't have let happen to Clay, bagged and tagged and catalogued. But it's also—it's good. Reassuring. Because Clay's standing here alive in Brock's bathroom, letting him do it, warm and solid under Brock's hands.

And then Brock catches up with himself and realizes how unbelievably fucking weird he's being, clears his throat and makes himself lift his hands away, and grits out, "Yeah, okay, you're not going to die on my bathroom floor. Congratulations."

"I'm considerate that way," Clay agrees, like nothing about that weirded him out at all, and pulls his shirt back on; and Brock watches him do it and tells himself it's a relief, to have Clay covered up again.

Yeah. Sure.

They have pizza, to go with the rest of their beers.

Brock feels stupid again, like there's something else he should be doing, something more serious and important and meaningful than just sitting here feeding Clay pizza. But Clay looks the most comfortable he's been all day, loose through the shoulders, unwound. He even flinches visibly when he moves wrong and pinches his ribs, instead of covering it up or pretending it doesn't hurt.

It sucks that that qualifies as progress, but Brock's going to take what he can get.

At first, Clay eats one slice, and then stops. Brock remembers, with a sick little jolt, thinking he seemed thin—and maybe it is stress about deployment, but maybe it isn't. Jesus.

So Brock carefully sets an example. He got two pizzas, because he likes having leftovers. He eats two slices, three, four. Doesn't rush it: drags it out instead, so Clay's stuck sitting there watching him eat, and acts like he hasn't noticed anything, like he's not paying the least attention to what Clay's doing. Like he doesn't have eyes for anything but the pizza.

Clay has a second slice. Bites his lip and laughs a little through his nose, and dives all at once for a third, like he's a kid getting away with something.

"Don't make yourself sick," Brock murmurs, when he's halfway through a fourth, Brock on his sixth and really starting to slow down.

And Clay grins at him, sauce on his chin, chewing a few bites with a deliberately open mouth, so thoroughly himself again that Brock's throat is suddenly tight and aching.

Clay starts yawning around the back half of that fourth slice, even though it's only just gotten dark outside. Then again, Brock thinks, he's had one hell of a day.

"For Christ's sake," Brock says, when Clay yawns _again_ , so wide Brock can hear his jaw crack. "The pizza'll keep. Go lie down."

Clay blinks at him, soft-faced, huge-eyed.

"In the other room," Brock adds gruffly. "I'm going to be up out here for a while. Get your ass off the couch."

Clay squints at him, starting to smile for absolutely no good reason. "Yeah? Doing what?"

"The crossword," Brock tells him. "Now go on."

"Oh, sure," Clay says, grinning outright now. "The crossword. Okay."

But that's as close as he gets to calling Brock on his bullshit, right before he yawns again; and if he's got a problem with being made to take Brock's bed instead of the sofa, he doesn't say so.

What he does say after a moment, grin gone, is, "Thanks." in a soft serious way.

"Yeah, yeah," Brock says, and clears his throat, and very deliberately doesn't watch him go.

He does his best not to think about it at all.

He clears off the coffee table, bags up what's left of the pizza in Ziplocs and dumps the boxes, and carefully doesn't spare a single braincell for the idea of Clay in his bedroom—in his bed.

That's the last fucking thing Clay needs right now. He came to Brock for _help_ , to get away from his asshole of a boyfriend. Not to be panted over by the dumbass who didn't let him know there was somebody on his side until it was probably almost too late to matter.

Brock sits down at the table instead. Even gets out the crossword, for cover, just in case Clay wanders back out for a glass of water or something. And then he sits there and stares at it, pen clutched in his fingers, and tries not to do anything stupid.

He's just keeping an ear out, that's all.

Everything's quiet for the first hour or two. Brock decides to take that as a good sign. He realizes after a while that he's been really white-knuckling the pen, that his fingers are tingling around it, and deliberately sets it down, spreads his hands out flat against the surface of the table instead.

So. So Some Guy really has been—hurting Clay. Not always hitting him, Brock evaluates, cool, like he's just deciding what to put in an AAR. Pushing him around, though, knocking him down or making him fall. Throwing things at him. Brock thinks about the phone calls, the way Clay stopped using his name out loud. Wanted to keep track of who Clay talked to, who Clay saw, where he went. Probably didn't like how often he used to call Brock, how often Brock had called him. Brock grimaces, wondering exactly how often Some Guy might have seen Brock lighting up Clay's phone, started a fresh argument without letting Clay answer it—while Brock had been standing here bitching to himself about it. Fuck.

Messed with Clay's eating habits—maybe. Maybe just put him on edge. Dealing with somebody like that, with the pressure, the temper, the promise of violence hanging over your head; that could be tough enough all on its own. Brock remembers a dozen different missions, where he hadn't even realized he wasn't eating right. Not until he got home safe and discovered he was fucking starving. It was hard to care about food, hard to think about it, when you were hung up on trying not to make a wrong move, knowing any second shit could get out of control.

Jesus. He sits there and lets his eyes fall shut. He wishes he _were_ filing an AAR, or a fucking police report—at least that way he'd actually be doing something. But he's pretty sure Clay's not exactly going to be eager to make a fuss about this, and Brock doesn't know what the hell else that leaves. He should be worrying about Clay, not himself, for fuck's sake; it's just so hard to figure out what the fuck he's good for that's actually going to be any _use_. He looked at Clay's bruises, he fed Clay pizza, he gave Clay someplace to sleep—but what the hell does that add up to, in the face of all the rest of it? It's not enough. It can't possibly be enough—

A noise. Brock goes still. He'd hoped Clay might be able to get some halfway decent rest tonight. But it's not like it's a surprise, if Clay's having nightmares.

At last: one fucking problem Brock can actually fix.

He gets up.

He tries not to move too fast, heading into the bedroom. It’s not a good idea to wake a sleeping Frogman on a normal night. He doesn't want to seem like a threat, like a danger; he doesn't want to end up looming over Clay, making his sleeping brain think—

Well. Think that Some Guy is there.

Except when he steps across the threshold, lets his eyes adjust so he can see, it turns out Clay isn't asleep at all.

He doesn't even look like he's been asleep. The covers are disturbed, but only around his ass, his thighs, where he's sitting on the edge of the bed. He twists to look over his shoulder at Brock, and in the gleam of dim light spilling in through the open door from the other room, it's easy enough to clock his wet eyes, the soft shiny-swollen skin under them.

Shit. Brock takes a second to wish grimly, for Clay's sake, that he'd just stayed out in the other room.

Except he couldn't have. He knows he couldn't have. Not when he thought Clay was in trouble in here, in pain—and he still is, even if it's not in the way Brock was assuming.

Brock clears his throat.

Clay's stuck like that for a second, just staring at him. And then he jerks a little, hastily turns back around, and says, too readily, too casual, "Oh, hey, dude. Sorry—did I wake you up moving around in here?"

Like hell, Brock thinks. As if Clay might have just—knocked something off the fucking bedside table. Jesus.

"That's really how you're going to play it?" he says aloud, mild.

Clay goes still, and doesn't look at him.

Brock draws a slow breath, lets it out, and tells himself to step the fuck up.

He crosses the room slowly, steadily, audible footsteps, so Clay won't be caught by surprise. Rounds the corner of the bed, and sits down a cautious arms length away; because sure, it would be satisfying to just fucking—wrap himself around Clay, head to toe, so nothing can touch him but Brock, but that probably isn't—

Clay must feel Brock's weight settling: he sucks in a wet ragged breath, and turns, immediate, unhesitating, to shove his face into Brock's shoulder, curling himself into the space that had been in between them. Brock's got to grab him, get an arm around his back, just to keep him from toppling off the edge of the damn bed.

" _God_ ," Clay says, damp, muffled by the collar of Brock's shirt. "This is ridiculous, man. I can't— _nothing bad is happening_ , this is the least bad anything has been in ages. I’m a god damned Navy Seal. I’m a trained killer. I don't know why I'm being like this. This is so fucking stupid."

"Yeah," Brock agrees, and doesn't move away. Sets a hand at the nape of Clay's neck, instead, and squeezes just a little, and Clay's breathing hitches and then settles into something steadier.

They stay like that for maybe ten minutes. Clay softens by degrees, relaxing into Brock, warm and increasingly slack.

And then he sniffs, and rubs at his face with his hands, and says hoarsely, "Don't make me ask."

"Okay," Brock says, and when Clay eases away and scoots up to actually lie the fuck down in the bed the way he's supposed to, Brock doesn't leave.

* * *

He wakes up slowly.

His eyelids are heavy. There isn't any obvious appeal in trying to open them. He's warm, comfortable, and the room feels close and dim around him, sheltered. It's before dawn, he realizes distantly, that slow soft time of morning when it's like there's nobody else in the entire fucking world except you.

Brock feels his mouth slant, and sighs a little through his nose. There's only one thing stopping him from sinking right back into sleep, and that's a vague itching curiosity about why his hands are so warm—what it is that they're resting themselves against.

So, grudgingly, he cracks an eye; and Clay's lying there on his side, looking right back at him, wide awake.

Oh. Right.

Brock sucks in a breath, half startled and half getting ready to move, because—because shit, he hadn't meant to lie down at all. He hadn't meant to lie down, and here he is, curling in toward Clay, reaching out across the less-than-substantial space between them: his hands are lying there, stone-cold guilty-as-sin sons of bitches that they are, with half the knuckles of them pressed up against Clay's chest through his shirt, the pad of one of Brock's thumbs hooked in his collar and touching skin.

Except Clay's not telling him off, even now that he's awake. Clay's not moving himself, and he's not shoving Brock away. He's just lying there, looking at Brock all silent and searching, gaze flicking from one of Brock's eyes to the other, back again.

And then he breathes in unsteadily, and bites his lip, and whispers into the dim still air between them, "It wasn't that bad."

Brock shuts his eyes, strains to leash the sudden wave of cold fury prickling its way just under the surface of his skin.

"It wasn't that bad," Clay repeats, like he's trying it on for size. "I don't know why that was what did it. I blew it out of proportion. I do that a lot."

"Clay," Brock hears himself say, hoarse, squeezing itself out of his aching throat.

"I could handle it. I was handling it. People get upset, they get angry. You work through it. We were managing. Last night—or the night before last, I guess, but anyway. It was—he wasn't even mad, really. I could have handled it. It wasn't that big a deal. Right? We'd already fucked plenty of times. He was my boyfriend," Clay adds, as if Brock's in any fucking danger of forgetting. "Obviously we fucked. So it wasn't like it was a big deal," and oh. Oh, god.

Brock swallows hard, once and then again. He'd been ready for a couple different things he could think of off the top of his head: an argument, a bad one; hitting, throwing things, shoving Clay around. But not this—god, not this—not again. 

"I should have just let him," Clay says quietly. "Right? All I had to do was let him. It wouldn't even have hurt, if I had. It probably would have been fine." He shakes his head a little, brow furrowing; the rest of his face is blank, weirdly calm. "But it was like—I just didn't want to. I didn't want to. And once I said that, once I let it out, I couldn't stuff it back in. I couldn't make myself roll over for it anyway. But he didn't stop. He didn't _stop_ ," and that calm is losing its grip on him suddenly, his breath coming faster, his eyes wet all over again. "It wasn't that bad," he mumbles again. "It shouldn't have been a big deal—"

"Bullshit," Brock bites out.

It feels scraped out of him, like it takes half his throat with it, but he gets it out.

Clay stares at him, wide-eyed.

" _Bullshit_ ," Brock says again, louder, sharper, and Clay's face just fucking—crumples.

Brock hauls himself across the bed on his elbow, doesn't even have time to second-guess doing it before Clay's curling into him, Brock's arms closing around his shoulders to hold him there, Brock's hand cupping the back of his head.

He's not crying, not this time. He's not making a sound. He's just lying there, huddled into the lee of Brock, shaking and shaking and shaking.

"Bullshit," Brock murmurs into his ear, again and again, scrubbing his fingers through Clay's hair; and they stay there like that until the sun comes up.

They have to haul their asses out of bed for breakfast sooner or later.

Brock figures maybe that's his best opening: give Clay a few minutes in the bathroom alone to get himself together, without Brock standing there staring at the open wound.

But it doesn't work out that way. Clay sticks to him, hand twisted in Brock's undershirt, utterly unselfconscious. They squeeze right back into Brock's tiny shitty bathroom, and Brock's struck with a pointless, stupid sense memory of Clay with his shirt off, Brock's fingertips against his bruises, the heat of him, the stillness, the way he'd stood there and let Brock touch him, and fuck, jesus. Brock feels his face get hot, and the first thing he does is lean in over the sink and splash some cold water on it.

_Not the time, you dumb fuck_ , he thinks hard at his reflection, like he can burn the obvious into his own brain if he glares at himself hard enough.

Clay's face is red, splotchy, for a completely different reason that incidentally makes Brock even more of a fucking creep; Brock backs off and gives him his turn, and he runs the water until it must be fucking icy, sticks his head under the faucet and gasps and swears, and then almost brains himself on the tap trying to jerk up out from under it again.

"Watch it," Brock snaps, hand dropping automatically to the back of Clay's head to guide him around it instead. Jesus. Never mind Brock's timing—Brock's _taste_ , for Christ's sake.

"Thanks," Clay says, breathless, dripping everywhere, and then he stops and bites his mouth, squinting up at Brock, and Brock still hasn't taken his hand away from where it settled at the nape of Clay's neck as Clay straightened up. "You know why I wanted to come here? Like, not just because I thought you'd let me or whatever."

Brock looks away, and takes his stupid goddamn hand back. "Because I wasn't going to tell anybody," he says evenly, carefully focusing every scrap of his attention on squeezing exactly the right amount of toothpaste onto his toothbrush.

"Well, yeah," Clay allows, after a second. "That didn't hurt. But also you're, like." He shakes his head, sending a handful of frigid drips flying. "You're bulletproof, man. You know? Nothing touches you. Stone cold." He stops and sighs a little, rubs his hands over his wet face and then looks at himself in Brock's mirror. "I want to be like that."

Brock blinks at his toothbrush once, twice. He turns, slow, deliberate, giving Clay a long flat look, and then narrows his eyes. "You kidding me, Sunshine?"

"What? No. Why would I be kidding you?"

And—well, hey. It's only fair play, after yesterday, after he made Clay strip down in here. That's all, he decides, and doesn't hesitate to reach out, close one of his hands around Clay's and drag it over, and shove it up under _his_ shirt. Not even that far: just to the nasty uneven little crater that's all that's left of that stupid fucking bullet wound.

"Because you are so unbelievably fucking wrong I figured even you might have realized it," Brock says evenly. "I am chock full of bullet holes, you dumbass. You want to talk bulletproof? Because I'd have had a brand new one right about here—" and he drags Clay's hand to about center mass instead. "—if it hadn't been for this idiot rookie who decided to step in there and eat lead for me, and he didn't even get a scratch."

"Uh, I had a huge bruise there for like three weeks," Clay says after a second, but his eyes are bright. He swallows, after, looks away and then flicks his eyes right back to Brock's; and he'd been pulling back a little, tentative, not sure what Brock was doing with his hand, but now he relaxes, leans into it, spreads his hand out over Brock's ribs. "I—guess I did," he adds slowly. "I guess I did do that, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did," Brock tells him.

"I kind of forgot about that," Clay says, almost more to himself than to Brock. "I don't know why I forgot about that, that was awesome." He clears his throat, and meets Brock's eyes again. "Anyway—yeah, okay, you caught me."

Brock raises his eyebrows, waiting for the punchline.

"I came here because I figured you probably needed somebody to look after you," Clay offers. "What with you being chock full of bullet holes and all."

Transparent fucking lie—but the good kind, the kind Clay would've told him before Some Guy ever entered the picture. So Brock only rolls his eyes a little bit when he says, "Well, gee, Sunshine, that's real considerate of you."

"I'm a giver," Clay agrees.

His hand's still spread out across Brock's chest. He looks up at Brock again, and there's a little flicker in it, something speculative and almost shy—

Not that it matters, Brock reminds himself firmly, because if— _if_ —there's a chance they're ever going to go there, it's definitely not going to be now.

Except Clay still hasn't moved his damn hand.

"Clay," Brock says, putting an edge of warning in it.

Which Clay promptly ignores completely, because of course he does. "Look, man," he says, "you let me get in your bed and then you came and got in it with me. I'm not saying you're putting the moves on me, you're an asshole but you're not that kind of asshole—but that's not brothers, dude. Or at least it didn't feel like brothers to me. Tell me I'm wrong."

It's an invitation, a challenge. It should be an easy one to take him up on. But Brock finds the words sticking in his throat. Because that's the last thing he should be admitting to, but—

But surely Clay's had enough of assholes jerking him around, and trying to make him believe stuff that isn't true.

The silence stretches.

"Okay, cool," Clay says. "Because, for the record, while I am definitely messed up in the head right now, I do know that there couldn't be a bigger difference between all the garbage shit that's been happening to me and getting to bang you. Like, that's not anywhere near the same category."

Brock closes his eyes. "I'm not in it to be your rebound, Sunshine," he manages.

"No, yeah, I get that," Clay says instantly. "And I'm not saying I'm not going to need some time to work up to it or whatever. I'm just saying—you'd want to give it a shot, right? Later, maybe. When it's not the absolute worst timing in the history of ever."

Brock bites down on the inside of his cheek.

"I'll think about it," he says, grudging.

"Yeah?" Clay says, and laughs a little, and Brock has to look, can't pass up the chance to watch his mouth slant up like that, all pleased and self-satisfied. "Awesome."

"Jesus," Brock sighs under his breath.

"I mean it, you know," Clay adds. "It's been—man, it's been fucking awful," and he says it with an excruciating tone of surprise, like it's only now, thinking back over it all, that he finds himself able to make that call. "But you're the opposite of awful." He stops, and bites his lip. "You'd—you'd probably be the best fucking thing that ever happened to me, Brock."

Brock tries not to do it. He does. But hearing Clay just say shit like that is—he _has_ to crowd Clay back against the bathroom wall, just for a minute. He has to get his hand around Clay's face, his jaw. He has to press his mouth to Clay's. Once.

Once—twice. A few times—

He jerks back, because if he tried to break the kiss off slow it wouldn't work; he'd just end up diving back in again. He breathes out harsh against Clay's cheek. Shit. Fuck. He definitely should not have done that.

"Holy fuck," Clay says breathlessly. "You _are_ into me. Man, I'm going to wear you down so fast, you aren't even going to know what hit you. Just you wait."

Brock backs off just far enough to meet his eyes, to give him a flat steady look. But he can't help but rub his thumb along the red wet curve of Clay's mouth, too. "You cocky little shit. You think so, huh?" he murmurs. "I don't know, Sunshine I'm pretty sure I can take whatever you can dish out."

"Oh, it is _on_.” Clay promises, and then flashes that fucking grin. "So, what are you making me for breakfast?"

"Cold pizza," Brock tells him, deadpan, just to listen to him laugh.


	2. The Second Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gratuitous smut we've been waiting for. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING--  
> The following reading contains content relating to a consensual and explicit sexual relationship between two adult men.  
> If this is something that could be potentially triggering or offensive to you, please do not continue reading.

Sometimes, it’s not just about love. Sometimes, it’s not just about lust either.

Sometimes, it’s just about being human.

Sometimes, Clay’s mind starts wandering back towards ugly places and needs to be stopped. He needs to be grounded. He needs to be reminded that there are still good things in the world, that it is worth all the trouble they go through to save it.

It isn’t easy, living with the first-hand knowledge of how unfair, inscrutable and harsh that human beings can be.

The wandering happens, generally, when he’s been following the news a bit too closely. Or when he’s spent too much time on a spin, and has seen their suffering up close. He’ll come around, he knows – in a few days the entirely un-SEAL like optimism he’s never quite managed to suppress will bubble up and convince him everything will be just fine. Not perfect, not by a long shot, but _fine_. He’ll convince himself that most human beings – most Americans - live a life that’s worth the trouble, and he’ll be back to himself.

But until then, he’s restless. The Mustang can’t drive fast enough; his whiskey tastes bland and boring. There’s nothing good on television, and all his ideas to cause a little good-natured havoc in the cages are uninteresting and uncreative.

It had taken Clay a while to explain this to Brock – the restlessness, the nervousness. When they didn’t live together, he could just fuck off to his own apartment and sulk in peace. Not so now.

The first few times, Brock asked Clay if he’d done something wrong. Once, he even thought Clay had wanted to leave, that he’d grown bored with him – as if that were ever a possibility. Clay had made sure to cling to him the whole night, after that episode. They’d fallen asleep wrapped up in each other, and in the morning the older operator had seemed satisfied that, whatever the problem was, it wasn’t him – it would never be him.

His silly, beautiful boyfriend. And here Clay thought he’d made it abundantly clear that he’s hopelessly, irredeemably in love with him, that he’s always been in love with him, even though his throat closes up every time he tries to say it aloud. He has to trust that Brock can sense it, instead.

A few months in, and the brunet is quicker to recognize the first signs of his lover’s restlessness. Clay wouldn’t say he takes it out on Brock (he _never_ would), but he does keep poking him in a million little ways – driving faster than usual to their favourite restaurant, choosing music that is particularly _shitty_ , playing silly tricks on Sonny or the rude couple at the table next to theirs.

Brock is well and truly irritated by the time they get home from their date. And, as soon as they step inside and the front door is closed, Clay is on him, pushing him up against the wall and sliding his hands into his jacket. Brock makes a surprised sound that’s muffled by an unexpected kiss, but soon enough he catches up and begins to kiss back.

It’s not just about lust, and it’s not just about love.

He flips them around, trapping Clay between himself and the wall, and already the blond feels calmer, more centered. Just – the reassuring weight and warmth and bulk of Brock’s body anchoring him to the here and now, anchoring the thoughts in his head to the rest of him. The force of his palm against his chest, Brock’s thigh firmly lodged between his legs.

Clay grabs his wrist. Brock has lovely, soft, _strong_ hands. Hands that can kill and heal and help, and he guides one of them to his neck, pressing it into his own skin to demonstrate. They’ve done this before, but something in Brock’s gaze tells him the taller man is having some qualms about doing it tonight.

Clay licks along the soft line of Brock’s lips, pulls him even closer. Clay’s breaths become gasping as he anticipates his love– his gentle, quiet love – showing him the rougher side of himself, the one that’s reserved just for Clay, and only when both of them are in the right headspace for it.

Brock pins him to the wall by the neck, firm but gentle, his thumb against the demon’s pulse, but doesn’t press into it like Clay would like. Instead, he studies him carefully, no doubt trying to gauge what Clay wants and what Clay needs, checking carefully to see that the two align. His beautiful, caring love, who can wreck Clay in the best of ways when he sets his mind to it.

_Come on, Brock._

Clay pinches Brock on the thigh through the fabric of his jeans and makes him yelp. His eyes narrow in annoyance and Clay bites his lower lip, his vision tunneling to the vision in front of him. Brock has had just enough of his antics.

The brunet interlaces the fingers of the hands they still have free. The next kiss is breathless, urgent, desperate, and then, unexpectedly, it calms, becomes softer and softer, gentler, warmer, and Clay’s pulse slows with it.

He goes slack against the wall and Brock releases his hand and neck, cupping his face in his fingers instead. Clay breathes him in.

It almost works. He’s almost moved away from frenzied need and steered towards sweet, slow tenderness. Which would be fucking fantastic, no doubt – but he needs something stronger today.

He grins as he slips out of Brock’s hold to playfully nip at the skin along his jawline.

Brock’s eyebrow quirks up. “Bedroom,” he says – orders, almost, “try and get there before I do.”

Excitement shivers through Clay’s body and he doesn’t quite run to the bedroom, but it’s a near thing. However Brock is behind him before he can make it through the threshold.

The tip of Brock’s index finger meets the very middle of his spine, and the light shock that hits Clay has him gasping and arching his back. He trips over his feet, and he would have fallen and gotten a mouthful of floor if he hadn’t been caught, trapped against Brock’s chest and none to gently shoved to the bed. 

Clay makes an undignified noise into the mattress; he would have preferred breaking his nose and keeping his pride. But no, of course – Brock wouldn’t have allowed him to get hurt.

Although… maybe this isn’t so bad. He hears Brock stepping closer, and Clay’s already savouring the idea of Brock towering over him, pushing his face into the bed, maybe pulling his hair a bit while he’s at it – when, instead, he’s helped up and guided properly onto the sheets.

Brock lies next to him. Once they’re both on the bed, facing each other, Brock raises a hand towards Clay’s face, pauses, raises an eyebrow. The blond nods, so Brock gently reaches out, the warm palm of his hand cupping Clay’s cheek.

“Clay,” he says. “You’ve been needling me all week again.”

“Have I?” Clay replies, but he’s already squirming a bit under his touch, coaxing Brock’s hand down to his neck. He knows he won’t be able to distract the brunet from the conversation, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try. He’s still a little shit, after all, distraction is his playing field. Lying on his side, he casually stretches out as if waking from a nice long nap, tilting his head back, exposing his throat, reaching up his arms towards the pillows and baring his midriff, letting out a low purr of a moan.

Clay wouldn’t have thought himself able to tempt his love with his body– if Brock hadn’t, little by little and then all at once; let it slip just how attracted he is to him. Oh, Brock would wax lyrical about any part of Clay’s body, under the right circumstances. About his _beautiful, intensely fierce eyes_. About his _mouth_ with _surprisingly plush lips_. About his _absolutely delectable neck_ , that is _begging to be kissed at all times and, on occasion, bitten_.

In the heat of the moment, the normally quiet man becomes loud and spills praise all over him, unable to help himself. Clay basks in it without shame, like a snake in the sun. He basks, even when his ears tingle and burn at the mention of the _lovely constellation of freckles_ along the curve of his shoulder, or his _narrow waist, a perfect fit in my hands_ , and _oh Lord, your hips were made to tempt me, Clay, my love_. Brock even lavished words on the _perfect arches_ of his feet.

For Clay’s hands, Brock could write epics. Clay distinctly remembers the first time he praised them – couldn’t possibly forget it. Clay had had two fingers inside of the taller man and Brock was holding him at the wrist, controlling every movement to his liking. He’d claimed Clay’s other hand for himself too, sucking on his digits. He stopped only to tell Clay, as he fucked himself with the blond’s hand, that he had the best hands in all creation – blasphemy, really. _Your beautiful, beautiful hands. Oh Clay, oh, they are perfect, they were made for me, my love, can you tell? Can you tell how well your fingers fit inside me? The perfect balance - made to pull triggers and give pleasure._ His eyes had rolled all the way back and he’d trapped the blond’s fingers between his lips again, and he’d come just like that, cock untouched, his moans encompassing Clay’s knuckles.

So now… yes. Clay is quite confident he can tempt him.

But maybe not when Brock is so concerned by his state of mind.

“What’s wrong?” Brock asks, stroking his hair. Clay realizes – belatedly – this was a trap. He can’t disentangle himself from Brock’s arms and walk away now.

“Nothing,” he mutters. “M’fine.”

“ _Clay,_ ” Brock says, and the young man knows he’s not going to wriggle his way out of this.

“I…” he begins, his mouth dry, “I need—” he grinds his teeth, not sure where he’s going with that. What does he need? He needs to not think for a while. He needs Brock. He needs to forget about everything, just for tonight.

When his sentence remains unfinished, Brock presses his forehead against Clay’s for a moment. “Alright,” he agrees simply. 

Clay turns to lie on his back, with eyes closed, as Brock gently pulls at his hands, and then something soft slides against his wrists and closes around them, securing them to the headboard.

Clay grins. _Now we’re talking_. He shifts around a little and realizes whatever’s tying him is very soft – velvet, maybe? – and that it’s just tight enough that he can’t free himself, but won’t hurt him at all if he doesn’t squirm around too much.

He huffs a bit. This is not what he had in mind, but hey – maybe now that he has him where he wants him, Brock will finally rough him up like Clay’s been craving.

His love pulls back and, as he does, he runs a hand down along the blond’s body, pulling off Clay’s sweats, leaving his briefs.

“Neat trick,” Clay says, his tongue darting out to wet his dry lips.

“Navy Seal,” Brock smiles at him as he sits back on his haunches between Clay’s bared legs.

A warm hand along the blond’s lithe ankle, over muscle and bone. His blue eyes bore into Brock’s, and Clay shifts against his restraints, warmth rushing to his groin because he knows – that’s a promise there, in his love’s gaze. Brock’s hand stops on his shin and pushes to the side, nudging Clay to spread his legs.

Clay swallows, open and vulnerable under the intense stare. He looks down and can see his hard cock straining against the thin fabric of his underwear, can see the shiny wet spot where he’s leaking already.

Yes, this is what he wanted. Kind of. He was thinking of teeth and nails and sharp stings of pain, but the anticipation, the exposure – they work just as well. He can’t think of anything else besides the way Brock’s lips have curled into a slight, satisfied smirk – the one he wears when he’s about to attack.

Brock leans over to kiss the side of his knee as his fingers graze the scarred flesh of Clay’s inner thigh. He makes a delighted noise against Clay’s fair skin, as if – God and Satan and everything in between – as if he were savouring something delicious, as if there were something irresistible about Clay’s taste. His lips flutter higher up, closer and closer to the hem of Clay’s underwear. Teeth nip at his thigh ever so gently in all the right spots, sending shivers up along his spine.

Just as Clay expects to finally be touched, just as he thinks the next thing Brock will do is get rid of his underwear and kiss the wet head of his aching cock – instead, his love skips right over it and leaves a kiss by his navel, making the blond exhale a frustrated, shaky breath.

Brock’s pink, swollen lips suck a red mark into his side, and Clay forgets about anything and everything else in the world. Brock’s firm hands hold down his hips, thumbs digging into his flesh. Just by accident, he brushes against Clay’s cock, still trapped in underwear, and – God, it’s absolutely maddening. It’s absolutely perfect.

“Angel…” Clay groans and tries to lift his hips, only to be pushed back down into the bed.

“Clay.” Brock replies, shifting up to give a pert nipple a long, sloppy lick, and Clay’s hands tighten into fists above his head, “I’m going to ask you to be patient, Sunshine.”

“I’m patient,” Clay shoots back quickly, too quickly, too eager to please, too eager to be told he’s good and be rewarded for it. But Brock chuckles fondly, and doesn’t make fun of him, not even for a moment.

“I know, babe.” Brock says, and whatever comeback Clay had cooked up dies in his throat as his angel kisses him. It’s a deep, wet kiss, and Clay feels his brain melt right out of his ears.

And then, finally, _finally_ , Brock looks at him in the eyes as he makes his way back down Clay’s body, tucks a dark curl behind his ear (fuck, why is that so erotic?) and presses his tongue flat against the crown of Clay’s cock through the fabric, and Clay – his spine leaves the mattress and a desperate sound escapes his throat as he squirms and wordlessly begs for more. Brock presses him back down again and leisurely laps at him through his underwear.

“Patience,” Brock murmurs, and Clay feels the shape of the word against his cock, feels himself leaking everywhere. _Patience_. Right. Easier said than done. He takes a deep breath and tries very hard not to vibrate out of his skin as Brock lazily licks at him over the soaked cotton. He’s – _they’re_ – making a goddamn mess, and it’s only after a few minutes of this torment that Clay realizes the incoherent muttering he’s hearing is his own voice, babbling nonsense, begging.

“ _Please_ —Fuck, I— _angel_ , it’s—I need—please, _fuck_ , please, _please_ —”

Brock lets out a harsh breath, then a little giggle, a hand holding Clay’s sharp hipbone tightly. “I wanted—ah, I had planned to wait much longer, Sunshine, but I don’t think I can,” Brock quickly stripped off his jeans and boxers, leaving him in pale blue shirt and socks, “looking at you, I can’t wait any longer.”

“Brock—” Clay groans out, tugging hard at his restraints, wanting nothing more than to sink his hands in the angel’s backside, feel the weight of him in his fingers, open him wide and guide him onto his cock—but he can’t.

He can’t, and he knows that, and Brock knows that, because as he straddles him he finally tugs the waistband of Clay’s underwear to free his cock, and holds it firmly in his hand. He balances himself on his knees, his other hand on the blond’s chest, and slowly, ever so slowly, sinks a slick finger into himself. Followed quickly by another, and another, until he splits himself upon on something much larger, taking Clay in inch by inch.

Clay almost sobs with relief. Brock closes his eyes, his beautiful mouth open in bliss. He stays completely still for a few moments, enjoying the feeling – giving Clay the chance to do the same. And the blond does, reveling in the way Brock is maddeningly tight and hot and slick around his cock, enjoying the slow, barely-there up-and-down shifting of his body.

When Brock moves, it’s with no rush, it’s experimental, seeking the best angle – and Clay can’t quite form words anymore, but he tries to encourage him anyway with eager, pleasured sounds with every shift of his hips. Then, his angel finds the best position – and Clay can tell, because Brock makes a low, surprised _ooh_ that Clay recognizes all too well – and sets a rhythm.

It’s painfully slow. Brock rises, the drag of his body absolutely maddening around Clay’s cock, and almost lets him slip out – then sits back down until Clay is bottoming out again, and Clay curses and thrashes against his restraints.

But Brock has no mercy. He doesn’t move faster, doesn’t let Clay fuck up into him, either. Clay can see Brock’s swollen erection, its head beaded with precome, can tell it must be hard and painful already – but he also knows his angel’s dogged determination when he sees it. They lock eyes for a moment, and there it is: the persistence that made Brock the penultimate Frogman.

Clay’s fucked in more ways than one. He shuts his eyes tight and thanks whoever for the gorgeous, incredible man determined to fuck every last thought out of his brain.

He doesn’t even realize he’s about to come until he has to actively stop himself from doing just that, pressing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth. Brock pauses for just a moment.

“Not yet, please,” the brunet breathes, and Clay’s tightens his fists so hard his nails sink into the skin of his palms.

Clay doesn’t know it yet, but this will happen three more times. Three more times he’ll stop himself right on the brink, and Brock will ask him – never harshly, always softly, always lovingly – to wait a little longer for him. Just a little longer.

Until Clay feels like he’s going to explode if he’ll wait any longer, and he can’t even look at Brock anymore, afraid he’ll come just from seeing his angel with his shirt stuck to damp skin, with his cock hard and dripping onto Clay’s stomach, with his face flushed and his eyelids fluttering with every thrust.

And then, a miracle – Brock leans over him, kisses him, calls Clay back to himself.

“Clay,” he pants, breathless, beautiful, “Clay. I love you more than anything.”

Clay doesn’t reply, can’t reply, only nods, his eyes squeezed shut.

Brock kisses the corner of his lips, and his cheek.

“Clay,” he says again, and he sounds so damn fond the blond almost sobs, “I’m going to finish now, and then I want you to follow me.”

Again, all Clay can do is nod.

Brock keeps his word. He sits back up, finds his angle again, arches his back so that Clay can reach deep, deep inside him, wraps his hand around his own cock – and it only takes a few thrusts for him to come all over Clay’s chest. And the way he clenches, the sounds he makes, the hot splatter of semen, the smell of sex filling the room and his lungs – Clay is done for.

Galaxies explode behind his eyes as he comes, a violent wave of pleasure that goes on and on and on, and when Brock chooses that moment to free his hands from their bindings, Clay grabs him by the hips and immediately flips them over, fucking into his own spend, impossibly coming still (again?), egged on by the obscene slap of their bodies joining, by Brock’s hands clutching to him, by the panting, _yes, yes, yes._

When he’s done, he’s completely wrung out. He falls on top of the taller man, mutters some sort of apology.

“Hey, none of that babe,” Brock chides him gently, running a hand along his bare, damp back, “I enjoyed myself very much.”

“Yeah,” Clay smirks, and there it is, here he is: himself, back again. “I could tell.”

Brock scoffs, and Clay kisses it from his lips.

It is, after all, about love. And about lust. And about asking for help, and about trust. It’s about letting himself fall and knowing he’ll be caught. It’s about a connection so deep it feels unbreakable, a friendship forged through fire.

This heavy cloud settling over his thoughts and weighing him down will come again, but Brock will be there to help him out of the storm. And Clay has no doubt – his love is stronger than any force on earth, and will be there for him, always, as sure as the sun will rise.


End file.
